Experimental Study of Explosive Intervals of Ternary Gas Mixtures

Abstract

The use of hydrogen as an energy vector seems today one of the most viable alternatives, although its use involves safety problems due to the generation of explosive atmospheres. Lower and upper flammability limits are one of the most important parameters at the time of characterize and handle flammable gases. This paper is focused on the evaluation of the safety prevention measures more commonly applied to explosive atmospheres, specifically the inertization, by means of a non-flammable gas (CO2) in air-hydrogen mixtures. In this study both theoretical and experimental methods to determine the flammability interval have been carried out. The flammability limits and the LOC value are represented in a ternary diagram enable to determine the explosive area containing the entire range of explosive mixtures. The experimental study has been conducted in a flameproof chamber of 0.5 dm3 volume, designed to withstand explosions inside. The results show that the theoretical approaches are only valid as a previous step to the experimental tests, since the observed differences between both implies that the use of such approaches could lead to important safety risks.

Keywords

• limiting oxygen concentration
• hydrogen
• explosive atmospheres
• inertization
• flammable gases
• flammability limits